By India Today World Desk: Protesters in Baghdad stormed Sweden’s embassy in retaliation for the burning of the Quran outside a mosque in Stockholm, which sparked condemnation from across the Muslim countries.
A crowd of supporters of firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr remained on the premises for about 15 minutes before they left as heavy security was deployed, AFP news agency reported.
A message on the leaflets carried by the protesters read, “Our constitution is the Quran.” Another message sprayed on the gate of the embassy compound read, “Yes, yes to the Quran.”
The protest came a day after Salwan Momika, a 37-year-old Iraqi citizen living in Sweden, stomped on the Islamic holy book and burnt several pages in front of Stockholm’s largest mosque.
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According to Swedish police, Momika was granted permission to demonstrate in line with free-speech protections. However, authorities later said a probe was initiated over “agitation”.
The incident sparked anger across the Muslim world at a time when people of the community observed Eid-ul-Adha and the annual Haj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia’s Mecca was coming to a close.
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry condemned Stockholm’s decision of giving the green light to an “extremist” protest to burn the Quran and said such acts “inflamed the feelings of Muslims around the world and represent a dangerous provocation”.
Sadr had called for the protest at the Swedish embassy and demanded the ambassador’s removal, asserting that his country is “hostile to Islam”.
TURKEY, US, OTHER NATIONS CONDEMN QURAN BURNING
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hit out at the Swedish government for allowing the protest, further clouding the Nordic country’s chances of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), according to AFP news agency.
“We will eventually teach the arrogant Westerners that insulting Muslims is not freedom of thought,” he said.
“We will show our reaction in the strongest possible terms until a determined victory against terrorist organisations and Islamophobia is achieved,” the Turkish strongman added.
The US also condemned the incident in Sweden. According to a State Department spokesperson, the protest resulted in the creation of an “environment of fear” which would impact Muslims and people of other religious minorities to exercise their freedom of religion.
Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous country, termed the Quran burning a “disgraceful act provoking the feelings of Muslims” as they marked Eid.
United Arab Emirates presidential advisor Anwar Gargash tweeted that the West “must realise that its value system â€æ cannot be imposed on the world”.
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The Swedish ambassador was summoned by the UAE Foreign Ministry in Abu Dhabi to lodge a protest against the free-speech protections given to “such heinous acts”, it said on Thursday.
Kuwait condemned the Quran burning and said the perpetrators behind the “hostile acts” should be brought to justice and “prevented from using the principle of freedom as a ploy to justify hostility against Islam or any holy faith”.
“This new offensive and irresponsible act disregards the feelings of more than a billion Muslims,” the emirate said.
The Cairo-based Arab League called it an “assault on the core of our Islamic faith”, and the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council also denounced the act, AFP news agency reported.
On the other hand, the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) called for “effective measures to prevent a recurrence”.